What does Accountability Mean to Us?

     Accountability is an important focus of our project in spreading awareness about Sexual Assault at DePaul.  Before the DePaul community can be held accountable for the rise in sexual assaults on campus, students need to become accountable for the words they say, for their actions and for their role in the violence within the community.  By being an active bystander to negative words, phrases or actions of your peers, the role of being an accountable community member is diminished.  In order for the community to be held accountable, the members within the community are also held accountable.

     "Accountable Communities shifts the emphasis from a collective process for holding individuals accountable for their behavior to individual and collective responsibility for building a community where robust accountability is possible, expected, and likely" (Ching-In Chen, 273).  This is extremely important in today's culture of the prison industrial system.  If we are trying to hold each other accountable and work towards a world with less violence, then we need to be aware of how we create more violence through the criminal legal system in respect to survivors and perpetrators.  Prison may be viewed as a way to seek justice for some, but it can also be more damaging--not to mention that there is little to no transformation of the imprisoned.  

     As community members, we must work to hold each other accountable in the situations that may be labeled as small or insignificant, as well as the more blatant instances of violence.   Something like Accountability Teams can be a powerful tool that can take place in different forms.  In The Revolution Starts at Home we read about a specific case study that has a powerful effect on all the members of the community by bringing the situation into the light while still being mindful of survivor sensitivity (Chen, Dulani, & Piepzna-Samarasinha 2011).  Through visibility to issues of violence within a community, we have a foundation to build off of.  There is a community and responsibility to improve the larger community that we are a part of.  By taking part in groups that work to process and heal from violence, there is an increase in the understanding and knowledge of these greater systems and commonalities.  Through this greater understanding, we can work to better understand how to work against these forms of oppression (Hernandez 2002).  Through sharing stories, we can gain a better foundation to work against injustices.

     By hosting a writing workshop on Sexual Assault and Awareness at DePaul we are hoping that the participants can shed a new light into their lives.  In Ending the Cycle of Abuse, Nye states, " It is often very difficult for an individual to observe [their] own experience in retrospect with any kind of objectivity.  But the stories that the others told could tap those unexpressed feelings and result in deep expressions of grief.  Listening to the sordid stories of other group members had a cathartic value for all, especially when the stories were told with a full range of feeling." (Ney, 25-26) This will hopefully prove that creative writing will work to create accountability by sharing their stories with others in the group. 

      Being accountable does not end with sharing personal stories or speaking up but it is redefining what "victim" means.  "Defining a relationship in victim-victimizer terms tends to prescribe rather than elicit what is going on between people. It tends to work from the presumption that victims and victimizers are in opposition to each other and ignores the dialectic process that shapes all relationships overtime." Taking accountability is an important factor when discussing labeling.  These are continuums that we all take a part in, and sharing stories can aid in realizing that.  

     Students at DePaul need to realize that a majority of sexual assaults, that happen on or off campus,   are by an acquaintance or someone that the victim knows well (this is consistent with the larger society's statistics as well).  This means that students need to be held accountable for their actions as well as their language, because the fact is--you never know who in your classroom is a survivor of sexual violence or has been greatly affected by this issue.  

     The words people choose to say can greatly impact the overall well being of individuals within the community, but also affect how the speaker spreads different ideas that are grounded in rape culture. So, being accountable is crucial in the process of healing and increasing awareness of sexual assaults of fellow community members. 

      Being held accountable is an expectation we have for the students, faculty and staff within the DePaul community.  It is a privilege, and we are working to spread awareness to DePaul and increase the accountability and transparency of sexual violence on campus and how it affects the community as a whole in addition to its members. 

Chen, Ching-In, Jai Dulani, and Leah L. Piepzna-Samarasinha. The Revolution Starts at Home:  Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. New York: South End Press, 2011.

Ney, Philip G., Anna Peters, Mary S. Gilbert, and Linda Forrest. "Ending the Cycle of Abuse: The Stories of Women Abused as Children and the Group Therapy Techniques That Helped Them Heal." Psychology of Women Quarterly. 20.4 (1996): 612. Print.

-source work Sam

Chen, Ching-In, Jai Dulani, and Leah L. Piepzna-Samarasinha (2011). The Revolution Starts at Home:  Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. New York: South End Press.

Hernández, Pilar (01/01/2002). "Resilience and human rights       activism in womens' life stories." in Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy, Interpersonal/Humanistic/Existential: Vol. 3: Interpersonal - Humanistic - Existential (0-471-38626-X, 978-0-471-38626-1), (p. 413).

-source work Emily

-Samantha Bentson and Emily Edwards